


Someday tomorrow,

by banksial



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Blood, Friends to Lovers, Gore, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Minor Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-03-29 18:43:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19025716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/banksial/pseuds/banksial
Summary: Alexander could be, may be, is probably most likely the last person on Earth after the third and final World War. An epilogue, of sorts.





	1. Ostracised

Waking up early had not been one of Alexander's favourite habits before the war, but it had become something that he had learned to look forward to. There was a certain comfort in being privileged enough to be able to watch the sunrise from the flat planes to the south of his self-taught shack. The sky turned all kinds of pretty colours. In the city it had been difficult to find the time to appreciate the way the sun flattered the sky into blushing a pretty pink. Alexander's own cheeks turned red with how cold it was so early in the mornings. It had grown cooler since…

Since.

The sunrise is a treat but the moment where it peeks across the horizon blindingly only lasts maybe a minute or two, and then Alexander has to make the short journey back to the hut and go about operating the crops he'd been cultivating for over a decade, now. What feels like a decades at least. He had stopped counting. Before, he had never really had that much success with plants; he could've killed a cactus if he had been tasked with one.

" _Plants are supposed to be receptive to your emotions_ ," His friend had told him while holding a recently deceased succulent. Tragic, tragic." _You know, they can feel your vibe_." The fuck they can, Alexander had thought. Had said, actually, much to his own detriment. But even so he had tried to give off positive vibes or whatever with the next plant he had. Some sort of poppy or something. It had looked like it was working but then the alarms, and the evacuation, and he hadn't really had the chance to grab his plant from the window sill above the sink in his haste and besides, he was carrying so many things it was doubtful he could balance a pot weighted with soil on top.

He wishes he had. It feels as if he hasn't got enough reminders of before. He has his locket (rusted, now), of his girlfriend smiling so brilliantly, and one of John's books that he had insisted on buying. And a filled journal. He had written extra small to make the pages count but there was absolutely no space now and the pencil he had was worn down into a useless nub. There were wildflowers here but the ones he can't eat go untouched. They make him feel too philosophical.

Right. The crops. Right. He's more forgetful nowadays. As he walks back to his supposed property he scrubs at his chin and rakes his fingers through the thick, coarse hair there. There are no razors anymore. You could sort through countless overturned trash bins in what's left of the city and all the razors are either too blunt or aren't there at all. There were quite a lot of bags of rotting food though. Once Alexander had presumed it was safe (how long could radiation last?) he had ventured back to the city partly driven by starvation and had scavenged a few rotten tomatoes, seeds hidden underneath black flesh, and had found wheat fields untouched miles from the city where the farmers used to work. There were rare bushes of berries. You could pretend a tangled mess of roots was spaghetti if you tried hard enough. The shockwave had not been able to stop things from growing.

Which is weird, isn't it? You lose your home, your books. Oh, books. Lovely things, those. People. You lose your break-through success. You lose the thirty years of your life having spent knowing civilization must fall someday but surely not in your life but for your children (selfish selfish selfish) and then it's all swept away. And life goes on anyway like the destruction of the most intelligent species was nothing more than a minor inconvenience. In a way, it's calming, after you cry a few hours for a few days per month. There's comfort in solace.

Right! Right. The crops. Sorry. He's a bit more forgetful nowadays. So. Alexander takes the uneven, woven basket from its place underneath the overhanging shade and then walks to where the grass turns muddy, bending and kneeling in the dirt. Two horribly calloused fingers pick a tomato from its vine. The contrast against his dirty skin is almost cruel. The tomatoes go into the basket, which is padded with dry grass.

It's a strange thing. Plants still grow so brilliantly. It makes Alexander feel less alone. Sometimes he catches himself wondering whether or not there are other people out there. Surely, the chances that he's the last one here is a one in a hundred. But there's not much point in hoping. If there are people, they're on the other side of the world. New York was bombed the worst.

The crops. Right, right. Right. _Crops_ is kind of exaggerating. It's a garden, really. He keeps forgetting about it. He keeps spacing out. Maybe it's age. Maybe it's radiation. Maybe he's dying. He's not a doctor. If he were, maybe he'd be able to know why the ankle he broke ages and ages ago still hurts when he twists it wrong. Even so he doesn't need to be a doctor to know that he's going crazy. Humans are social creatures. Sometimes, he talks to himself. Sometimes he hears voices. Sometimes the trees talk to him. The flowers are all ditzy but the trees have fairly good arguments in their own right. Alexander concedes some to make them feel better about being trees and not humans.

Keep your hands focused. Keep going with the crops-- garden. The garden. He doesn't like forgetting. He doesn't want to forget. He's survived all this time without any help.

Help. Help. The voices, again. Or his own voice. He puts a muddy hand over his lips to test it out, and. And it really is in his head, because his mouth isn't moving but he can still hear the voice. So. So, it's in his head.

"Help?" A small voice, tiny, tiny, so small, but not a child's. Alexander turns his head and his hair doesn't move with the movement because it's so dirty and stiff (no more conditioner, no more silken locks) and the voice calls out again.

"Help. Help?"Like a question. And then the brush moves, the thick grass growing to the left of the hut, and then a body comes through. Alexander licks his lips, tastes dirt. It's sickly pale, the skin clings to bones as if hanging on for life but drapes grossly near the shoulders and the neck, puddling like a skin suit a little too big and stretched in strange places. And its eyes, disgusting, they're dead. They're dead. Alexander knows what death looks like and its eyes are dead. And then something like relief flickers on the body's mouth and then it just kind of crumples, like wet cardboard, collapses, dead dead dead.


	2. Progress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The stranger is aptly nicknamed 'Bony'. Alexander has spent long enough alone that he's forgotten what kind of behaviour is acceptable around anybody, especially that of a starving guy. He is characteristically selfish.

Alexander has history with hunger. When he was a child back on-- on the island (how has he forgotten? He had worn his origins on his shirt sleeve like a badge of honour won in battle. He tucks this tragedy away to grieve over later and promptly forgets it after a moment) he had watched children he played with on the sandy pathways become thinner and thinner every day until they stopped coming to goof off with the rest of them. It was such a regular thing that nobody really mentioned it. None of the children knew better. They had grown up with starvation.

And it isn't as if he hasn't seen dead bodies before. The first ten or so times he went to the city to scavenge for any useful trash, the sweet smell of rotting flesh would fill his nostrils and surrounded him when he slept in some abandoned house that had survived the terror. It chased him home. Before the bombing he had heard somewhere that once you encounter the smell of death it never leaves you. It follows you like an old friend. But it's been a long time since he's seen a body of somebody who has died of hunger.

As he checks over the stranger's body (a him, not an it) he recognises the tell-tale signs of hunger. When he peers inside of his mouth he sees engorged gums and worn teeth and the curls growing tight and compact on his scalp are copperish because of the lack of proteins. And, of course, the flesh is so thin on his torso that Alexander can count each rib and then other bones as well.

Alexander isn't a doctor, but he thinks it's too far gone for this man. He looks almost like a twisted marionette with how thin his arms are and Alexander's long, rough fingers can circle his wrists and have extra room. The best he can do is lay him down on his bed and go out to hunt for something meaty. He can only manage a fish from the river after ages and ages of trying. He's not bad at fishing, but it's not the right season. The fish is big but it is also mangled and looks greatly unappetising.

He has learnt not to be picky. Alexander starts a fire effortlessly and then boils some water in a bowl he had wrangled out of clay. He makes a soup out of various vegetables and the fish and it doesn't taste very good but he thins it down again and again until it's only a little chunky and shimmering on top and then attempts to rouse the stranger.

 _He's_ hungry. He hasn't put so much effort into food for the past decade because he hasn't had the chance to be picky, and it smells good, and he's very hungry, and wouldn't it be easier to drink this and let the man die? Put him out of his misery, perhaps. Drag him out into the forest and bash his skull in with a rock.

There's a sound from the bed. Alexander raises his head. Bony hasn't opened his eyes (good, good, good) but his lids flutter.

"Please, don't," croaks Bones, and Alexander looks down guiltily. He hadn't realised that he was speaking aloud.

"Sorry," He says back. "I have soup."

At that, Bony attempts to sit up, lips already parted hungrily but his eyes still closed like a newborn animal as if he were sensitive to the light. Alexander makes an odd noise of comfort and shifts closer. After an age of having the world to himself he cannot help but feel peeved when, when he raises the bowl to Bony's mouth, Bony drinks it all without even thanking him or sharing.

"I'm hungry as well," He says through gritted teeth. Bony doesn't stop eating even if Alexander isn't a ceramic artisan and the clay is flaky and probably mixed into the sentiment at the bottom. Bony lowers the bowl and takes his (thin, knuckly, repulsive) finger and begins to scoop everything he's missed into his mouth. Alexander tries to take it away from him when he sees Bony take a fish bone and suck on it. "You can't eat that. I don't like you eating that." But Bony doesn't listen, only nibbles on the bone and licks the bowl out.

Alexander realises that saying anything won't keep Bony from scraping desperately for more. He watches instead, and when Bony is satisfied (or not satisfied-- maybe just certain he's gotten every little bit of food he can) he looks blearily at him. "Thanks," says Bony, and then lays back down.

"Hey!" Alexander doesn't like seeing him close his eyes even if they're dull. It feels unfair that after years and years of being alone, his only companion is a man so close to death. "Hey, don't go to sleep." Bony is asleep. Alexander licks his lips and takes his bowl from where it had been turned upturned on his rag sheets. He notes mournfully that there's not anything left. He's at a loss for what to do next. While he's in his hut he creeps to his precious collection of things and takes his locket. He doesn't open it-- the hinges had broken a while ago and they'll snap if he messes with it too much. He just holds it in his hand and looks uncertainly at Bony.

_"I'm tired of babying you," Eliza had snapped finally, voice turned crackly over the computer speaker and expression warped with the cheap pixelization. "Once you learn to be an adult, and maybe actually care for other people instead of the other way around, come back to me."_

Eliza wanted kids. Alexander was frightened. Eliza wanted to go to Australia to experiment with her florist job. Alexander had wanted to stay in New York for his career.

Okay. Okay. He can care for this man. He _can_. Alexander builds a fire inside the hut and moves the fronds of leaves that make up his roof above it with a long stick so that the smoke can escape. And before he can think of anything more to do he realises that he's very, very tired (he's so old nowadays). Since Bony takes up his bed he settles on the ground a safe distance away from the fire and falls asleep quickly.

The next morning, he wakes up to the noise of rustling. He thinks at first that it's his sheets but upon further inspection it's coming from outside. He finds Bony raiding his tomato plants, chewing and holding a few in his hand. It looks like he crawled from the house to the garden.

"You can't eat so much!" His voice surprises Bony, who instead of dropping the fruit in surprise only clutches them to his body like a protective mother. "Your stomach is-- and you can't--" But before he can organise his thoughts into words Bony has stuffed the baby tomatoes into his mouth. Alexander opens and closes his mouth a few times before finally: "You're shaking."

"It's cold," Says Bony, and his voice is weak but there's a spark of dark malice in his tone.

"Yes. There's fire inside."

"There's food out here," Bony counters, and he's very argumentative for a man two days from being a corpse, but he looks very unsure and scared. Alexander bites his lip.

"You can't eat so much. Your stomach can't handle it. You'll throw it all back up."

"I don't care." But Bony is clearly tired and when Alexander retreats experimentally he follows. He tries to stand, and Alex watches him until he manages it, and he staggers to the bed before Alexander can decide to be cruel and lay down on it. Bony falls asleep. Alexander sits next to the bed, as decidedly dutiful of this new opportunity as a dog (he still sees those in the cities but despite his hopes for a friend they're wild, now) and doesn't leave, not even when the sky turns bright and he knows that he's missed the favourite part of his day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave feedback and criticism! Kudos and comments feed my family.


	3. Patience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loneliness is more prominent when aware of what you don't have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much interaction in this chapter.

Stay or leave? Here or go? Alexander is stuck between going outside to survey the damage done to his precious tomato plants and watching over Bony, who may die because Alex wasn't there to save him in the next hours. He has already missed the sunrise and that small window of time where the sun just peeks over the horizon and blinds him. In his head, even though he has plenty of hours in the day and often finds himself with time on his hands, he has to get out of the house and get to work. For example, he should prepare for his next trip to the city (which he had been meaning to do for a while, now) and find more things to plant. He had demonstrated yesterday that he was able to cook things other than his delicious staple of roots and fish but it wouldn't hurt to search around for other things to include in his meals. The best thing to do, he decides, is to leave. He doesn't remember anything from that first aid course that his friend made him do because it was so long ago and if Bony was really hungry, he could just strip Alexander's hard earned fruit.

Alex's mouth twitches into a frown. Bony will just eat and eat. Alexander knows hunger, and hunger does weird things to your brain that makes you think that you can never stop eating, that you will never be satisfied even with a full stomach. It would be a lot easier, Alexander thinks as he gets to his feet and goes to see if the rain pail has filled at all during the night, if he had somebody to supervise him. If Bony recovers he will have a friend in case somebody else stumbles upon his tiny camp now that there's proof of existence outside his own conscious.

The reality of the situation hits Alexander. There is another person inside of his hut. Thankfully the bucket he's got in his hands does not drop to the ground in his haste to celebrate because it had rained a little last night and that rain provided some of the only clean water Alex had, if he didn't want to make the long walk to the freshwater river. For the first time in years, he is not truly alone. If he keeps Bony alive, that is.

Throughout the next few days Alexander pushes through his anger and irritation at Bony's constant attitude for the fact that this man might potentially be the only other person besides Alexander that survived the fallout. In the long periods of time between Bony's spurts of consciousness in which he eats and drinks and is pathetically moody, Alexander hunts for fish or tries to snag birds or cooks. Nothing that takes longer than-- than too long. 

Alexander does not miss time despite his fumbling for any unit of measurement to describe things more eloquent than 'ages' or 'moments'. Before he had struggled in a one-sided race against it. It was the reason that his girlfriend broke up with him. Or at least, part of the reason. There were a lot of reasons.

("So is your dream more important than my dream?" Eliza's voice reaches a crescendo. "Your career drives you insane! At least mine has some potential of impacting people other than old men who still read the newspaper." Eliza had stopped. She had held her hand to her mouth and Alexander had told her to get out, get out of his apartment, get out of his _life_.)

Anyway.

One late morning Alexander returns to the hut fruitlessly; it had been two days since he had caught anything and he was worrying over whether or not the stranger (he was rethinking his name around about now) could survive without any protein. He doesn't hear the rasping of Bony's breath until he gets inside. There was no way that Curly's systems had relapsed so badly in the time where Alexander had been away, but when he sees him there is no mistaking the paleness of his skin or the sweat on his forehead.

Alexander isn't a doctor. Sometimes his ankle hurts from where he broke it something like two years ago. Waiting feels like giving up. Waiting feels like surrender. Alexander doesn't quite remember much from his days as an islander (hollow cheeks, dead eyes, the sound of water lapping hungrily at the shores) but he remembers that there were some medicinal plants found amongst the thick jungle knotting the inland. For sure, there are plenty of flowers and roots and whatever in the patch of forestry that Alexander has found. When he leaves he doesn't look back at Curly. He can feel guilty if he comes back to find Curly dead. For now, he doesn't need that thought haunting his consciousness.

"Plants," Alexander says aloud as he walks around an offending bush with sharp leaves that he has learnt to avoid. "Plants. Plants." It's a beautiful day. The air is warm and heavy, but not humidly wet as to be unpleasant. It's like an afternoon after school in the months approaching summer where the weather turns the type to melt your insides into honey. It's like the long walk home, passing by the chippy and the convenience store and then all of the other houses, seemingly unoccupied like you were the only person in the entire world. Wet sheets flapping in the breeze.

His friend had thoroughly enjoyed tea. He had an on again-off again collection. Something about medicine and benefits, yap yap yap. Back then Alexander wasn't really concerned about anybody else. Himself over everybody, that's how he got to New York and earned his job and established his presence as a journalist. 

Tea. Tea was made of plants, right. Lavender, rosemary. Chamomile. Alexander knew what chamomile looked like. The flowers, that is. He had picked some on a walk for some girl. Eliza's cousin had had it in her bouquet. So, easy then. Mission objective:. Alexander could not really tell the difference between common daisies and chamomile. They both had the same yellow heads and white petals bent in little half-smiles. Like a sun, really. But the shape of a chamomile flower is more distinct where a daisy is flatter. Alexander preys upon a certain bush and after comparing it tirelessly against a stalk that he was pretty sure was a daisy, he picks a bunch of that. Along the way he picks things that he had attempted at, when he had hurt himself before. A startlingly pink flower with sepals that looked unappealingly like fur near the stem, a thistle fruit, some kind of root that looked and smelled a little like ginger. Things that looked familiar to the sorts of things he'd seen the islanders use back at home.

He was no botanist. He had a substantial amount of produce by the time he was back, a strange kind of exotic bouquet for people who want an exotic wedding picture to post on their Facebook. Thankfully, Curly had not died a long, painful death while Alexander was gone. Alexander spends an embarrassing amount of time just watching him breathe. He marvels at the presence of another person not further than a foot away. Perhaps in a little too detail he studies the way his chest rises and falls underneath the planes of the scavenged sheet, the painfully sharp curve of his cheekbone. The light from outside casts a dull kind of shine to his skin like he was already dead, waxy. If he had a little more meat on him, Alexander thinks, he'd be handsome.

Once satisfied that Curly will not die within the next hour Alexander retreats to the range of flowers and wonders what to do. Chew them up? Boil them? Cook them into something? Make Curly eat them as is? He starts with the chamomile/daisies. Chamomile tea, right? Healing, or something or other. He's forgotten most of his friend's lectures. While that boils in a precarious position above a hasty fire Alexander hypes himself up to pushing the pink flower and then the next into his mouth. He decides to get it done quickly. It tastes like an absence of something that he fails to pinpoint. Spits that into another bowl and, while it's still warm, pastes that onto some of the worse cuts and bruises scattered across Curly's body. It's been so long since he's touched another person. Even though layering hot plant matter on ugly marks is not the done thing, Alexander still finds it undeservedly intimate. When Curly wakes up, Alexander encourages tea into his mouth and watches over him after he falls back asleep.


	4. A.Burr, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aaron's experiences following the bomb.
> 
> Warning: Racial slurs

 

 

 

Aaron Burr would say that he had hit rock bottom. But if he were really honest with himself, he's hit the bottom so many times that he might as well be falling in purgatory.

He would like to blame luck, or fate. It's easier than blaming himself. But even though Burr is always the type to never confront a problem, he knows full well that the slow decline of his life has been nobody's fault but his own.

"Please don't leave," He says, watching Theodosia stuff hastily-folded jeans into the suitcase her mother had given her at their wedding, like she had known Theodosia was going to up and leave in the long run. She's doing it with such force she may as well be pummelling Aaron, she looks so upset.

No. Aaron would like to think that she looks upset; but Theodosia is more stubborn than he is. Her mouth is set into a flat, frustrated line and her eyes look as if they're seeing past him when she lifts her head. It's a look Aaron recognises it in himself.

"What do you expect me to do?" Theodosia asks. "You've always been the same, Aaron. I thought I could fix you but I can't."  
  
"I can change. I can take pills."  
  
"You don't want to take pills."  
  
"I don't understand." Because he  _doesn't_ understand. They had been fine a fortnight ago. There hadn't been a noticeable change in their relationship. The excitement of romance had bled out perhaps a few months ago but that happened to every couple. It wasn't so catastrophic as to lead to this.

"Well, understand this, Aaron Burr," Theodosia closes the suitcase with a decisive thump. "You have no substance. I ask you how your day was and your answer is always the same and you never ask back. When you make dinner it's bland and when I make dinner you barely eat it. You leave for work early in the morning and come back late and if you do eventually get into bed, you're up all night on that laptop. What are you looking at? Who are you talking to?"

Aaron opens and closes his mouth. Words escape him. Theodosia waits and continues when she sees that he's not going to say anything.

"Did you know that every time I go to a bar, some guy talks to me? Did you know that? I had so many guys talking to me, Aaron. _Good-looking_ guys. Despite what you may think, I'm not totally dull."  
  
"I don't think that," Aaron chokes out. "You're beautiful."  
  
"Well. Maybe if you asked, you'd know that I'd be leaving. I was waiting, you know. If you had asked I would've stayed."  
  
It feels like Aaron's been punched in the gut. He almost keels over, winded. It seemed like such a small thing. How could he have missed it?

"If you don't want me to leave, truly, you'd stop me."  
  
Aaron says nothing. He chokes on wasted seconds, minutes, hours, days. Theodosia clicks the rusted clasps of the suitcase closed. It sounds like a full stop, and Aaron knows she's made her mind, and if he were to tell her to stay, if he did try and convince her instead of following her downstairs a few paces behind, quiet and compliant as she slams the door to their little flat shut, maybe Aaron wouldn't feel so empty.

He hooks his index finger into the window curtains and watches her get into her Jeep and pull out of the driveway.

 

   
Aaron Burr is high. The lights in his flat are off and the only noise filling his consciousness is the buzzing of the refrigerator. He can hear the door opening downstairs-- it could be his flatmate, the one who lives below him. Ever since Theodosia has left they don't talk too much. Aaron thinks nothing of it.

"Jesus fuck, Aaron."  
  
Jon, reduced to a swirling mass of colour, bobs into his vision. Jon fumbles, unsure of what to do, and finally sits down gingerly next to him.  
  
"I don't care," Aaron croaks. His voice is broken. He can't tell if he's whispering or yelling. "I want to be left alone."

Jon must leave, because he doesn't bother him further.

 

Four days after his one-month anniversary for going clean, the bomb hits.

Aaron is discussing the Cook case with Angelica, walking through the corridor to his office, looking down and thumbing through his file. He doesn't know it's going to happen. He doesn't think when he sees the increasingly brightening light filtering through the window, which shatters a second later. He drops his files. As the world tears itself apart, Aaron wrenches the door open and crams himself into the metal supply cabinet pressed up against the wall. The force of the blow slams the door shut for him.

Instantly, the vents in the door are blacked out. The next time Aaron breathes in his nostrils fill with dust, and he chokes, and coughs, and gasps for more air.

And what can he do? He hears a scream, sounding distant and close at the same time. What can he do? He lies in wait and begins to pray, picking up abandoned faith like a child turning over a long-forgotten toy and finding that the underside has faded. He doesn't remember any sermons so he says what he does remember.

"God, may your salvation free us from sin. Pray that you forgive me for my wrongs, I confess with my mouth that I am borne again and--" A tremor. A sob. "--cleansed with the blood of Jesus. Lord, save me now. Lord--"  
  
The cabinet has been flipped at a forty-five degree angle. Aaron climbs out after kicking the door open and stares pensively at the way the metal has been warped just above where his head would have been, twisted like it were glass fresh heated and then cooled. When he looks around, he is unsure where he is. There are no noteworthy landmarks to orientate himself. The sky is a sick yellow like the colour of old bruises.

He wonders if the God his grandfather preached of really did come, and he was just one of many sinners abandoned.

 

This is what he does: He surveys the damage, unfeeling, detached, holding off on the crying until he finds a safe place to do it. He walks until he finds a shop selling useful goods that’s been abandoned and finds a pair of steel-cap boots and some thick tradie pants. Decency still prickles at his consciousness-- he changes behind the one shelf that is still upright and then continues to raid various stores for useful stuff. A hiking bag behind a window, canned goods from some convenience store.

  
While he's stuffing as many bottles of water he can into his bag he hears talking, and ducks behind the counter. He's kind of a movie junkie, or at least he was, so he knows that people go all kinds of crazy when things like this happen.  
  
"Sick, they got the good gummy bears."  
  
_Especially_ kids.

Aaron doesn't like to consider himself a bad person. He's rarely hurt people with malicious intent and he tries to keep himself on everybody's good side. He doesn't know where this anger comes from but he scares himself when he kicks the boy with the base-ball bat in the stomach, and that's it: He's opened a door that he won't ever be able to close, now. The guy doubles over and his friends look scared. Aaron takes off before the guilt settles in.

 

Aaron guesses that he's made it about thirty miles from the city in two weeks because he's just about reached farming territory, practically untouched. The fence posts are still intact but there are no more cows or goats or sheep. The smell is unbearable. They've all died from starvation from the fact that all the grass has died and anybody who was taking care of them have abandoned the effort.

Burr decides to take refuge in a farmhouse after walking practically non stop for what feels like eternity. As he approaches the home, picked for the conveniently short walk from the road to the doorstep, he hears a shout from the roof. There's a kid with a shotgun standing unsteadily on the tin roof. She couldn't be more than eight.

 "Drop your food," She cries, waving the gun around wildly. Her hair is matted and it's obvious she's tried to pry her braces off herself because her mouth is all around with sores and blood. "Drop the food an' t'bag or I'll shoot ya. Don'cha think I wouldn't. I'll beat t'hell outta ya. Fuckin'-- Fuckin' rip ya guts out. Don'cha think I won't, n--negro. Nigger!"

Aaron stares dead-eyed up at her. He doesn't move. Her shouting becomes more frantic. She's obviously scared. He can smell the sweet scent of rotting flesh. She's either lost someone or shot someone.

Slowly, slowly-- Aaron's bag slides off of his shoulder. He drops it to the ground.

"Das right. Outta here, you better scatter. Don’t want no niggers here. Not here."  
  
Aaron backs away and then swallows thickly. The girl has lowered her gun. He needs that bag. He's got another month or so's rations in there.

 He makes a run for it. The girl screams, "Hey!" and the gun goes off and Aaron doesn't know if he's been shot or not, he doesn't _know_ but he keeps going anyway.  
  
"Get 'im, 'Arry!"

 Harry is not a big kid but he's got a motorbike helmet on which makes him _look_  and Aaron's about to be shot and he doesn't know what he's thinking but he's shoving the kid over and grabbing the pistol out of his hand. It's .22. He points it at the kid, breathing heavy, eyes watering at what he could do, what he's about to do.  
  
"You let go of him! You let him go, nigger!"

  
  
Guess what Aaron does. Guess.

 

The girl cries as Aaron stomps Harry's head in once he's gotten rid of that helmet. She screams, but the rifle has dropped from the roof and clattered onto the ground. Aaron gets blood and worse on the bottom of his shoe and then he runs.

 

And he runs. And he runs. He tries to run away from the crime he's just committed, the mess he's made, the little girl who has to fend for herself.

 

And when he's really stressed Aaron has been known to stress eat. He eats a fortnight's worth of rations and then curls up underneath some brush and tries to scrape what little there is of him left, concentrating it, so there's less to focus on.

 

And he keeps going. He doesn't know where. Away, he supposes. Away from here.


End file.
